Researchers are attempting to declare Palawan’s Cleopatra’s Needle Forest Reserve a critical habitat. To be considered a critical habitat the area must support high biodiversity and the animals and plants that live in it must be threatened. Some of the unique species in Palawan include the Palawan bearded pig and the Palawan hornbill.

Black bears chase visitors in Yellowstone National Park

American black bear, female with cubs

A black bear and her three cubs surprised tourists last week when they appeared on a bridge lined with sightseers. Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo, said that “It’s a beautiful animal we can all enjoy. It’s their home. Treat them with respect…”

Threat of listing the sage grouse as endangered may be enough to protect the bird

Male greater sage-grouse displaying

Simply mentioning the consideration of listing the greater sage grouse as endangered has been enough to raise $424 million since 2010 for restoration and 4.4 million acres of habitat have been conserved. A loss of habitat and fragmentation has been the primary cause of their decline.

Rhino poaching continues unabated in South Africa

Southern white rhinoceros

South Africa has already lost 393 rhinos this year. Eighty percent of the world’s rhino population resides in South Africa. Crime syndicates appear to be responsible for the poaching fuelled by a demand for their horns.

The triumph of the bison: Europe’s biggest animal bounces back a century after vanishing

European bison resting

In 1927, the European bison became completely extinct in the wild, but since then has made an amazing recovery with over 5,000 bison in existence today. The European bison is found in nine countries, as far west as Germany and as far east as Russia. The most recent country to welcome back the bison was Romania where it had vanished in 1862.

Fewer shark are being caught – and that’s not good news

Blue shark

Shark catches are down 20 percent from their peak in 2003. In 2003, fishing fleets netted 900,000 metric tons of shark. Unfortunately, however, one of the reasons that shark catches have decreased is simply because there are less sharks.

South African Airways bans all wildlife trophies from flights

Caracal cub

SAA chose to ban all wildlife trophies on their flights after wildlife traffickers attempted to smuggle ivory to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Species targeted by hunters range from crocodiles to caracals and baboons.

Researchers applied the beneficial bacteria from the skin of several wild Panamanian frog species that were Bd-resistant to the skin of the golden arrow poison frog hoping it would confer resistance. While this procedure did not confer resistance, researchers learned that survivors of the fungus already possessed unique bacterial communities prior to the experiment.

World’s forest have fragmented into tiny patches

Munchique wood-wren

Fragmentation reduces biodiversity by up to 75%. Some fragmented regions house endemic species such as the Munchique wood-wren that exists in only a handful of peaks in the Colombian Andes, but these are now isolated from each other by pastures and roads.